Affiliate Revenue

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

One famous American writer who always fascinated me was Ernest Hemingway. His writing style was always crisp and authentic. He really knew how to capture a reader's attention. Surprisingly though, he never really thought of himself as an accomplished author. In his own words, "We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master."

If you're reading this, presumably you are trying to find your hidden talents. As an aspiring businessman, you'd like to earn extra money. Perhaps you've never written much, but would like to now. Maybe you enjoyed writing about something that stirred your imagination years ago, but it's long forgotten now.

Speaking personally, I really enjoyed writing creatively in younger years. Since then, unfortunately, most of my hidden talents have been left in the attic.

Another celebrity made this observation, "If you're going to be a writer, just write." Seems like a great place to start, as an apprentice. Together, let's try to develop a writing style that's stamped with our own unique signature.

HIDDEN TREASURES LYING WITHIN:

Why not start with some honest self examination? Ask yourself these pertinent questions:

"What inspires me?"

Anything we're passionate about is worth sharing with others. Don't be afraid to capitalize on yours. When you write about some personal interest, your enthusiasm will shine through. The Internet is saturated with people looking for great ideas and solutions to their problems.

"What great ideas can I share with others?"

Assuming it's something you know and care about, almost anything will do. A person who educates others about basket weaving can succeed just as much as an expert on nuclear medicine.

" Can I overcome my fears and earn extra money doing this ? "

All of us have a naturally tendency to avoid risktaking. Fortunately, those willing to take a chance on themselves quickly find their hidden talents. With some practice and dedication, almost anyone can earn extra money doing this.

BUILD IT AND THEY WILL COME

The inspiration for this concept came from a movie called "Field of Dreams". It's full of great ideas and inspirational messages. A story about superstars from a different era who had a chance to relive their passions one more time.

At first glance, creating your own articles may not seem nearly as dramatic. Don't forget that many of these stars from the past started in the minor leagues, just as you are doing now.

Once you've found your niche, the real work begins. It starts as you jot down 15-20 ideas that you could easily communicate. Following this will be research on relevant keywords and keyword phrases that will form the basis of future articles. At this stage, you'll use resources like Google Keyword Tool and Search Engine Optimization to gauge both the demand and competition for your chosen specialty.

Seemingly impossible? Only so if you are left alone. Fortunately, by capitalizing on web-based resources you'll uncover great avenues that help you along. In addition, your affiliate companies will offer you further training and personal guidance.

Every business has its growing pains and yours will earn extra money before you know it. Look back on your progress six months from now and you'll be amazed at the progress you've made. Hang in there, the best is yet to come.

CAPTIVATE THEIR ATTENTION:

Everyone can develop a writing style to captivate the attention of Internet consumers. Many of the successful ones use simple concepts that you can also use effectively. Here are a few great suggestions I came across myself while surfing the net.

"Write in an easy, informal way"... Lengthy, highly technical articles may bore some people to death. In your articles, try to engage your readers as though they were close friends.

"Use dynamic words that convey action or feeling "... Words that help people visualize concepts are more effective than those which are dated. To make your writing really stand out, keep a variety of resources handy. A Thesaurus always comes in handy, and you can also download similar web-based tools.

"Relax and let your mind do the work"... Ever wonder why you get all these great ideas in the middle of the night? Your brain is more relaxed then. Great writers like to put their thoughts on paper, and then leave the article sit for a few days. You may find similar inspiration yourself while listening to music or out walking.

Finally, let's focus for the last time on our hidden talents. It bears repeating that "we are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master."

I'm convinced that if it was good enough for Ernest Hemingway then it must be good enough for me."

Doug Jefferson recently retired from a lengthy career as a "Retirement Income Specialist". Now a home-based entrepreneur, he continues his passion to help baby boomers and others in retirement achieve financial comfort and stability.

Saturday, October 20, 2012

A few day's ago I downloaded a book from Amazon.com written by Ian Daniel titled, "E-Commerce Get It Right." The book contained some very useful information pertaining to e-commerce and marketing. One of the areas I've been wrestling with is what exactly to sell and how to best market it. I know there are countless articles, books and videos on the subject and you can get your head turned in several directions all at once if you're not careful.

Affiliate marketing can be a lucrative strategy but for all the success it can bring, if done incorrectly it can fail miserably. The basic formula is that a website owner (myself) will host another company's links, banner ads, or other product information on their own site. If a visitor clicks on these links and makes a purchase, that company pays the hosting company a fee. In essence affiliate marketing is a revenue sharing arrangement.

Affiliate programs have grown quickly since their inception. The e-commerce website, viewed as a marketing toy in the early days of the Internet, became an integrated part of the overall business plan and in some cases grew to a bigger business than the existing offline business. For affiliate marketing to work on your website you need to offer products or services that are related to your own content and ones that your visitors will be interested in buying. Now I'm looking for good affiliate marketing programs that add value to my website and ones that pay high commission rates. It takes hard work, knowledge, and time to see the financial benefits of a successful affiliate marketing program. Since I'm just starting out I'm anxious to see how all this will play out.

The industry has four core players: the merchant, the network, the publisher and the customer. The market has grown in complexity to warrant a secondary tier of players, including affiliate management agencies, super-affiliates and specialized third party vendors. The market has grown in complexity and until a couple of days ago I had very little idea as to the potential affiliate marketing can have for ones business.

The growth of the Internet has made affiliate marketing a necessary facet of a web advertising campaign. This popular approach is indispensable in selling products and services to an online audience. Fundamentally, you can grow your business and make significant money without ever having customers in the traditional sense of the word. You can reap huge financial rewards from affiliate marketing if it's done correctly but not everyone shares the same level of success

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Are you a good at sales? Would you like to make money online? Try affiliate marketing! Affiliate marketing is a system that allows you to receive a percentage of profits from businesses who you refer clients to. In this article, you'll find some great tips that will help any aspiring affiliate marketer get started.

Starting with Amazon Affiliates is a great way to be introduced to affiliate marketing as they provide you literally with everything you could potentially need. Cutting your teeth with them will show you what you should look for in additional affiliate programs, and you'll be better able to avoid scams.

When you have established yourself in niche affiliate marketing, and you have a good customer base, start thinking about other aspects of your niche that might draw a different, unique demographic. Now that you have some customers, you can enlist their help in finding others who might be interested in this new and different slant on your product.

A great affiliate marketing tip is to work with a company that offers a life time commission. With a life time commission, if a customer purchases a product a year later, you'll still make money from the referral. There are still a lot of companies that offer a life time commission, so do your research and try to find them.

Comprehensive reviews will boost reader trust in what you write, so include every last detail. Talk about for whom the product would work best and who it wouldn't, if there is such a group. For example, a tool which would work great for right-handed people might not be as functional for someone who is left-handed.

Try to find an affiliate program that supplies training. It doesn't have to literally be a training course, but they should at least offer a user guide which walks you through the process of adding their content to your website. They should also provide you with knowledge about what helps sales and what turns buyers off. This will save you a lot of grief down the road!

When searching out which affiliate network you want to work with, you should first start by looking at what it is you want to do. You will want to figure out what you want to concentrate on or what your specialties are and then, when you do, find the affiliate networks that deal with that. It will help limit how many networks you will have to research.

When choosing an affiliate to work with, you should always be cautious of those requiring a minimum quota. This means you'll be working very hard for possibly very little return. Stick with compensation per every sale and not compensation per a number of sales or referrals. There's just no money in it.

If you are email marketing as an affiliate make sure that you are keeping track of your best emails. In many cases many of the people receiving your emails will unsubscribe and you will be left looking for new customers. Be sure to use the best performing email and hope for the best.

If you are reviewing a product that you have not purchased, make sure that you always include examples of how it works. You always want to give screen shots of the product, other reviews from users (with permission), and other vital information about the product. As an affiliate, you should be really informed about any product you promote.

Affiliate programs that offer front and back-end offers are worth a second look. Back-end offers can net you money for years to come depending on the life cycle of the product. Affiliates offering back-end money are harder to find, but they are worth the work. Receiving multiple commissions from one customer will keep the money flowing.

You need to know HTML to successfully run an affiliate site. If you have a web site then you must learn, at the minimum, how to make simple changes and upload the changes. The one exception to this is your site has been designed by a professional. Yet, there will always be a need for some changes. The question you have to answer is, do you want to pay for, and wait for, a designer to do a simple alteration which could take you minutes?

With a little hard work and some great programs, anyone can make affiliate marketing work for them. Now that you've read the advice offered in this article, you know just what to do to make your affiliate marketing efforts a success. All that's left for you to do is get started.

Saturday, October 13, 2012

Out of the numerous of making money online, many people are embarking on the journey of becoming an affiliate marketer. It is an extremely worthwhile and powerful method to use if you are looking towards setting up an online home based business. Affiliate programs are easy to join, profits are easy to make and commission is paid out on a regular basis. However, there are several pitfalls which need to be avoided if you are to create a successful business. Don't make the same mistakes other affiliate marketers commonly make. Consider and avoid the following three common mistakes.

1. Do not choose the wrong affiliate programs.You must take time out to do some research instead of just joining the first ones you look at. A lot of people make this mistake in the rush just to get started earning money. This is the "bull in a china shop" approach so try not to get sucked in. Research will be time well spent in the grand scheme of things. Consider promoting products you already have an interest in and knowledge about, then find out about how much demand there actually is for such products.

2. Do not join too many different affiliate programs.When starting out, people are so keen to get the money coming in that they make the easy mistake of joining too many different programs. Yes, it would be fantastic to have multiple streams of income right from the start, but you will find that your time will be spread too thinly to give each one of them any kind of justice. It is much more sensible to start promoting one (possibly with a fairly high commission rate) concentrating all your efforts into promoting it fully. When you find you are making reasonable profit, you can then start to think about joining other programs. There is no rush - affiliate marketing is going nowhere!

3. Remember to carefully research the credibility of the affiliate programs.Most people forget to do this important task and it is just so easy to do. Check out the testimonials existing customers have submitted - people are always willing to let you know about their experiences. Do they recommend the products or services offered? Another method of doing this is to look for forums / blogs or discussion boards, where people are usually very honest about their customer service. Positive feedback will prove how reliable, trustworthy and credible the program is.

Saturday, October 6, 2012

Today, making a personal website is as easy as going to the store and buying food. Free web hosting sites that provide you with ready-made templates and free storage are readily available on the web. If your website has a distinct content and can be considered a resource site then most likely you will have a consistent number of traffic and readers, with this your site can definitely earn money. If you have not heard of affiliate marketing, it is simply getting paid by a business if you send traffic or generate sales for their product or service based on your marketing effort.

There are thousands of affiliate programs accessible online that you can sign up for, thus it is important to determine the best affiliate program available. In an affiliate program you as the publisher come to an agreement with the merchant website as to how commissions are obtained, computed and given. In one of the set-up, publishers like you display links or adverts that connect prospective customers to the business or merchant site. If it is a Pay-per-Click contract whether or not your website visitor buys from the merchant or not you are still guaranteed a commission based alone that your readers have clicked on the link.

Other affiliate programs require a sale to be made for the affiliate site or your site to be paid, either way a variety of affiliate methods are provided by different affiliate programs. So, how do you find the best affiliate program that suits you?

1. It's all about the money

To be completely blunt about it, the purpose you want to join an affiliate program is to earn money which is undeniably the goal. Since there are affiliate programs no matter where you look on the internet, the first basis would always be what percentage are you getting, or what's in it for you. There are affiliate programs that might as well not pay you with how little they give to their affiliate sites, compared to established programs. One of the best affiliate programs in the industry is by Empower Network. They give up to 100% commission to their publishers. You can get from $25 to $4625 for each sale. With that, you definitely need to read the numbers.

2. Understand the Scheme

With affiliate programs there are 3 ways that earning would come about; Pay-per-click, Pay-per-Sale and Pay-per-Lead. You must understand how each works to choose an agreement that is best for your website. In Pay-per-Sale, when customers coming from your website buy from the merchant site you either get a percent from sale or a fixed commissions, while on Pay-per-Leads the business will pay you for each person that signs up with their information making them prospective buyers. Having the right knowledge and idea as to how each agreement works will save you a lot of hassle and misunderstandings in the future.

If you know the basics to finding the best affiliate programs on the web then you are pretty much ready to venture into this business. As much as possible find a program that is not too complicated and would give you enough training to fully equip you with things you need to know. Like Empower Network, they teach those who sign up with their program to understand how it works, build and run a business online and offline while living the life.

Monday, October 1, 2012

It is a fact of life that everyone has to earn a living, even the richest people all around the world work day in and day out with their multi-million businesses. Work is in the normal ecology of things that it would be impossible for anyone to just stay at home and do nothing. But, in modern times that the internet and technology have brought convenience at the top of its game, it is no longer impossible to work in the comforts of your own home, by just having a computer and a good internet connection. The internet has become a universe of its own where what people do in the real world can be done virtually. Even the business sector shifted marketing efforts online from the traditional media. Online affiliate marketing is a type of performance-based advertising method that businesses do to get them known as well as give business to independent owners of the website.

It is easy to put up a website and get it running for people to see, and there are moneymaking opportunities if you sign up for online affiliate marketing. The more you get to promote a business through the content of your website; you can get commissions either based on a sale made, directed traffic or turning a random visitor into a business lead. Earning potential is greatly high on affiliate marketing, like Empower Network, one of the best affiliate programs to date; they pay their affiliate sites from $25 to $4,625 per sale and up to a possibility of a 100% commission. But, how do you prepare to become a publisher for a merchant site, and assure that both you and the business will earn and not waste time and effort? Here are some things to consider:

If your knowledge about online affiliate marketing is equal to a cat's knowledge about astrophysics then you need to get your resources ready. Get the right kind of training that will arm you with all information that needs to be known. Never go into a business venture when the only things you know are what you heard. You would never go bungee jumping unless you know how the cable is tied right? Some online marketing programs like Empower Network are one of those companies that provide good training. Be wise and don't leave anything to chance. Read books, research online and watch videos on what the experts have to say.

Upon conceptualizing your website, create a layout that will give you enough space for whatever you are advertising and to where you will display your content. No one likes to read much as well visit a website that is disorganized and one that looks like an ad catalog. Affiliate programs will also look into this to consider whether or not you could be a viable publisher. The more you take time to create a perfect space that's easy on the eyes, the more people will take notice of your material.

Target a specific topic or concept for your online space. How organized your space looks is as equally important as how organized your content is. Consistency and cohesiveness will attract a certain kind of audience. If this is properly identified, affiliate marketing brands or products relating to that will be more specific and target driven.

Online affiliate marketing could be your kind of tea as long as you know the right kind of scones to complement it with. You can even earn more than what you may possibly earn from your average day job and that could be your reality. Imagine the time you can spend more with your kids or on your other interests if you are making a living on your own allowable time frame and not a rigid 9 to 5 work schedule.

Sunday, September 30, 2012

A lot of people spend a good chunk of their day online; some do it for work while others do it to relax and communicate with others. Millions of people have joined social networking sites while others have gone to blogging and putting up their own personal websites. But, did you know that in all the hours spent online from writing a blog post or updating a website you can also earn some money? Affiliate marketing is one way you can profit from your blog or your website.

So, what is affiliate marketing? To define it simply, affiliate marketing is when a business or brand pays an affiliate when a customer buys from the business due to the promotion of the latter. Meaning, if an affiliate site or your blog markets a brand and consumers buy it because of your marketing efforts, you then get paid by the brand. If you want to know more about what is affiliate marketing or you want to earn from this marketing style then you can join different affiliate programs offered online. There are a series of programs that you can sign up for like Empower Network. Known to be one of the biggest affiliate programs online, you can earn from $25 up to a whopping $4,625 per sale you make. In some ways affiliate marketing is often confused with other internet marketing schemes due to some overlapping qualities in its promotional methods. In various advertising methods like Pay-per-click, Search Engine Optimization, display advertising and e-mail marketing these are also used in affiliate programs, although what sets it aside is the use of product reviews on posts as well as promotions done by an affiliate site on the product or service offered by another independent business.

There are a variety of approaches how an affiliate program can help you earn for your site, like Empower Network they can help you generate a full percent of commission from sales. In this system of marketing there are different roles played for by different parties; the business/brand, you as a publisher and the customers. With this system there are also different levels of how you can earn. If the contract between you as publisher and the business you are promoting is based on a pay-per-click scheme whether or not your customer buys from the business, the fact alone that they have clicked an advertising then you as promoter already gained that commission.

If affiliate marketing is still a very vague concept to you yet you are interested to make money using this marketing strategy for your blog then it is wise to join a trusted affiliate program that you can find online. Like Empower Network, they will not only provide an upline for your website but before the program starts you will get extensive training. Through this you are not left alone to find your way in the dark and you are protected from online scams that will just rip you off with your money.